Followers

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Leaked documents reveal that federal government tracked Occupy Wall Street protesters because it feared the movement could turn violent.

An internal Department of Homeland Security report (PDF) titled “SPECIAL COVERAGE: Occupy Wall Street” was part of 5 million leaked documents published by WikiLeaks and examined by Rolling Stone contributing editor Michael Hastings.

The report indicates that the department monitored protesters’ social media activities to assess the movement’s impacts in individuals sectors, including financial services, commercial facilities, transportation, emergency services and government facilities.
In addition to monitoring Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Meetup and Occupy live video feeds, the feds also relied on the left-leaning activist website Daily Kos for tracking protest locations.

“The growing support for the OWS movement has expanded the protests’ impact and increased the potential for violence,” the report notes in its final paragraph. “While the peaceful nature of the protests has served so far to mitigate their impact, larger numbers and support from groups such as Anonymous substantially increase the risk for potential incidents and enhance the potential security risk to critical infrastructure (CI). The continued expansion of these protests also places an increasingly heavy burden on law enforcement and movement organizers to control protesters.”

Hastings warned that there were “ominous” implications to this kind of information gathering.

Editor's Note: The following quote truly demonstrates what Jello Biafra refers to as "the erosion of talent in the vision thing"

As President Obama said earlier this year and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton affirmed in her recent VOA and BBC appearances, “You – the young people of Iran – carry within you both the ancient greatness of Persian civilization, and the power to forge a country that is responsive to your aspirations. Your talent, your hopes, and your choices will shape the future of Iran, and help light the world. And though times may seem dark, I want you to know that I am with you,”

We must apologize for failing to appoint William Shatner to deliver this message in an attempt to mask the sadness and embarrassment of having anything to do with these clowns. We are sorry in so many ways...

The excellent article ‘Armageddon Approaches’ written by Dr Lasha Darkmoon , a cautionary piece which points the reader towards some very scary background information.

Nasty surprises that awaits Persian Gulf warmongers

The most important thing I’ve read these last few days is the excellent article ‘Armageddon Approaches’ written by Dr Lasha Darkmoon , a cautionary piece which points the reader towards some very scary background information.

For example, according to Russ Winter of The Wall Street Examiner , Iran’s Sunburn missiles, acquired from Russia and China over the last 10 years, have the capability of creating “a world of hurt” for the US Navy’s 5th Fleet.

“The Sunburn is perhaps the most lethal anti-ship missile in the world, designed to fly as low as 9 feet above ground/water at more than 1,500 miles per hour (mach 2+). The missile uses a violent pop-up maneuver for its terminal approach to throw off Phalanx and other US anti-missile defense systems. Given their low cost, they’re perfectly suited for close quarter naval conflict in the bathtub-like Persian Gulf.”

With its 90-mile range, the Sunburn can be fired from practically any platform, including a flat bed truck, and could hit a ship in the Strait in less than a minute.

Adding this warning, Mark Gaffney says , “The US Navy has never faced anything in combat as formidable as the Sunburn missile.”

He mentions the even more-advanced SS-NX-26 Yakhonts missiles, also Russian-made (speed: Mach 2.9; range: 180 miles) deployed by the Iranians along the Persian Gulf’s northern shore.

“Every US ship will be exposed and vulnerable. When the Iranians spring the trap, the entire lake will become a killing field,”

“In the Gulf’s shallow and confined waters evasive manoeuvres will be difficult, at best, and escape impossible. Even if US planes control of the skies over the battlefield, the sailors caught in the net below will be hard-pressed to survive. The Gulf will run red with American blood.”

As both writers point out, the Iranians will have mapped every firing angle along their Gulf coastline. And the rugged terrain will not make detection easy.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has acknowledged that Al Qaeda and other organizations on the US “terror list” are supporting the Syrian opposition.

Clinton said: “We have a very dangerous set of actors in the region, al-Qaida [sic], Hamas, and those who are on our terrorist list, to be sure, supporting – claiming to support the opposition [in Syria].” [1] (Click here to watch video)

Yet at the same time, in the above BBC interview the US Secretary of State repeats the threadbare Western claim that the situation in Syria is one of a defenceless population coming under “relentless attack” from Syrian government forces.

There is ample evidence that teams of snipers who have been killing civilians over the past year in Syria belong to the terrorist formations to which Clinton is referring to.

As Michel Chossudovsky points out in a recent article: “Since the middle of March 2011, Islamist armed groups – covertly supported by Western and Israeli intelligence – have conducted terrorist attacks directed against government buildings, including acts of arson. Amply documented, trained gunmen and snipers, including mercenaries, have targeted the police, armed forces as well as innocent civilians. There is ample evidence, as outlined in the Arab League Observer Mission report, that these armed groups of mercenaries are responsible for killing civilians. ??While the Syrian government and military bear a heavy burden of responsibility, it is important to underscore the fact that these terrorist acts – including the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children – are part of a US-NATO-Israeli initiative, which consists is supporting, training and financing ‘an armed entity’ operating inside Syria.” [2]

The admission at the weekend by Hillary Clinton corroborates the finding that armed groups are attacking civilians and these groups are terroristic, according to US own definitions, and that the situation in Syria is not one of unilateral state violence against its population but rather is one of a shadowy armed insurrection.

Clinton’s admission retrospectively justifies the stance taken by Russia and China, both of which vetoed the proposed UN Security Council Resolution on 4 February, precisely because that proposal was predicated on a spurious notion that the violence in Syria was solely the responsibility of the Al Assad government.

Clinton also acknowledges in the BBC interview that there is “a very strong opposition to foreign intervention from inside Syria, from outside Syria” – which tacitly concedes the fact that the Syrian population is aware that the so-called oppositionists within their country are Al Qaeda-affiliated mercenaries.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

One of the first juicy bits to trickle out of Wikileaks release of 5 million Stratfor emails is the comment from Fred Burton, Stratfor’s Vice President of Intelligence, that the Imam of the controversial so-called Ground Zero mosque is an “FBI operational asset.” Burton, who was formerly a special agent with the US State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service and the Deputy Chief of their counterterrorism division, made the comment on an email chain regarding a New York Observer article, Untangling the Bizarre CIA Links to the Ground Zero Mosque. The controversy surrounding the “Ground Zero mosque” overwhelmingly dominated the news and discussion surrounding the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

UPDATE: The above was posted about an hour after the GI Files had been announced. It seems relatively minor compared to some of the other items coming out, but still quite interesting and perhaps important. Now, 12 hours later, it’s apparent that the scope of issues involved in the GI Files release will be immense. Spying on activists, insider trading, money laundering, “sexual control” of assets and mind-boggling arrogance and incompetence seem to be only the tip of the iceberg.

Here is the full Wikileaks GI Files press conference, which took place a few hours ago:

Cass Sunstein even gets a mention, in connection to the Bhopal tragedy and cover up, of all things.

The Pentagon has revealed that partial, incinerated remains of some September 11 victims that could not be identified were sent to a landfill.

The number of victims involved was unclear according to a Pentagon report released Tuesday, but it involved some of those killed when a terrorist-hijacked airplane struck the Pentagon, killing 184, and another crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, killing 40, in the September 11 attacks against the US in 2001.

The Pentagon released the report by an independent committee that was asked to examine practices at the military's mortuary at Dover, Delaware, the first stopping point for fallen troops coming home from war overseas.

"We don't think it should have happened," the committee chairman, retired General John Abizaid, told a Pentagon news conference.

The panel was formed after an investigation revealed last November that there was "gross mismanagement" at the Dover facility and body parts had been lost on two occasions. After that investigation, news reports said that some cremated partial remains of at least 274 American war dead were dumped in a Virginia landfill until a policy change halted the practice in 2008.

Tuesday's report was explaining the old policy, and said:

"This policy began shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, when several portions of remains from the Pentagon attack and the ... crash site could not be tested or identified."

It said the partial remains were cremated, then given to a biomedical waste disposal contractor who incinerated them and took them to a landfill.

Court Finds Suit Is Effort to Chill Boycotters’ Public Statements On Issue of Public Concern

February 27, 2012, Olympia, WA and New York, NY – Today, in a lawsuit brought against current and former members of the Olympia Food Co-op board of directors for their decision to boycott Israeli goods, a Washington State court dismissed the case, calling it a SLAPP – Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation – and said that it would award the defendants attorneys’ fees, costs, and sanctions. The judge also upheld the constitutionality of Washington’s anti-SLAPP law, which the plaintiffs had challenged.

In a court hearing last Thursday, lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP argued that the court should grant the defendants’ Special Motion to Strike and dismiss the case because it targeted the constitutional rights of free speech and petition in connection with an issue of public concern.

“We are pleased the Court found this case to be what it is – an attempt to chill free speech on a matter of public concern. This sends a message to those trying to silence support of Palestinian human rights to think twice before they bring a lawsuit,” said Maria LaHood, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights.

On Thursday, the courtroom was filled with interested observers, and boycott supporters held a rally outside the courthouse. Today, the courtroom was filled to overflowing and many co-op supporters spilled into the hallway.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is one of the most powerful lobby organizations in the country. AIPAC’s clout helps fuel a never-ending cycle of violence in the Middle East.

Here are ten reasons why AIPAC is so dangerous.

1. AIPAC is lobbying Congress to promote a military confrontation with Iran. AIPAC - like the Israeli government - is demanding that the U.S. attack Iran militarily to prevent Iran from having the technological capacity to produce nuclear weapons, even though U.S. officials say Iran isn't trying to build a weapon (and even though Israel has hundreds of undeclared nuclear weapons). AIPAC has successfully lobbied the U.S. government to adopt crippling economic sanctions on Iran, including trying to cut off Iran's oil exports, despite the fact that these sanctions raise the price of gas and threaten the U.S. economy.

2. AIPAC promotes Israeli policies that are in direct opposition to international law. These include the establishment of colonies (settlements) in the Occupied West Bank and the confiscation of Palestinian land in its construction of the 26-foot high concrete "separation barrier" running through the West Bank. The support of these illegal practices makes to impossible to achieve a solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict.

3. AIPAC's call for unconditional support for the Israeli government threatens our national security. The United States' one-sided support of Israel, demanded by AIPAC, has significantly increased anti-American sentiment throughout the Middle East, thus endangering our troops and sowing the seeds of more possible terrorist attacks against us. Gen. David Petraeus on March 16, 2010 admitted that the U.S./Palestine conflict "foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel." He also said that "Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the [region] and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support."

4. AIPAC undermines American support for democracy movements in the Arab world. AIPAC looks at the entire Arab world through the lens of Israeli government interests, not the democratic aspirations of the Arab people. It has therefore supported corrupt, repressive regimes that are friendly to the Israeli government, such as Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. Events now unfolding in the Middle East should convince U.S. policy-makers of the need to break from AIPAC’s grip and instead support democratic forces in the Arab world.

5. AIPAC makes the U.S. a pariah at the UN. AIPAC describes the UN as a body hostile to the State of Israel and has pressured the U.S. government to oppose resolutions calling Israel to account. Since 1972, the US has vetoed 44 UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israel’s actions against the Palestinians. President Obama continues that policy. Under Obama, the US vetoed UN censure of the savage Israeli assault on Gaza in January 2009 in which about 1400 Palestinians were killed; a 2011 resolution calling for a halt to the illegal Israeli West Bank settlements even though this was stated U.S. policy; a 2011 resolution calling for Israel to cease obstructing the work of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees; and another resolution calling for an end to illegal Israeli settlement building in East Jerusalem and the occupied Golan Heights.

6. AIPAC attacks politicians who question unconditional support of Israel. AIPAC demands that Congress to rubber stamp legislation drafted by AIPAC staff. It keeps a record of how members of Congress vote and this record is used by donors to make contributions to the politicians who score well. Members of Congress who fail to support AIPAC legislation have been targeted for defeat in re-election bids. These include Senators Adlai Stevenson III and Charles H. Percy, and Representatives Paul Findley, Pete McCloskey, Cynthia McKinney, and Earl F. Hilliard. AIPAC's overwhelmingly disproportionate influence on Congress subverts our democratic system.

7. AIPAC attempts to silence all criticism of Israel by labeling critics as "anti-Semitic," "de-legitimizers" or "self-hating Jews." Journalists, think tanks, students and professors have been accused of anti-Semitism for merely taking stands critical of Israeli government policies. These attacks stifle the critical discussions and debates that are at the heart of democratic policy-making. The recent attacks on staffers at the Center for American Progress is but one example of AIPAC efforts to crush all dissent.

8. AIPAC feeds U.S. government officials a distorted view of the Israel/Palestine conflict. AIPAC takes U.S. representatives on sugar-coated trips to Israel. In 2011, AIPAC took one out of very five members of Congress—and many of their spouses—on a free junket to Israel to see precisely what the Israeli government wanted them to see. It is illegal for lobby groups to take Congresspeople on trips, but AIPAC gets around the law by creating a bogus educational group, AIEF, to "organize" the trips for them. AIEF has the same office address as AIPAC and the same staff. These trips help cement the ties between AIPAC and Congress, furthering their undue influence.

9. AIPAC lobbies for billions of U.S. taxdollars to go to Israel instead of rebuilding America. While our country is reeling from a prolonged financial crisis, AIPAC is pushing for no cuts in military funds for Israel, a wealthy nation. With communities across the nation slashing budgets for teachers, firefighters and police, AIPAC pushes for over $3 billion a year to Israel.

10. Money to Israel takes funds from world’s poor. Israel has the 24th largest economy in the world, but thanks to AIPAC, it gets more U.S. taxdollars than any other country. At a time when the foreign aid budget is being slashed, keeping the lion’s share of foreign assistance for Israel meaning taking funds from critical programs to feed, provide shelter and offer emergency assistance to the world’s poorest people.

The bottom line is that AIPAC, which is a de facto agent for a foreign government, has influence on U.S. policy out of all proportion to the number of Americans who support its policies. When a small group like this has disproportionate power, that hurts everyone—including Israelis and American Jews.

From stopping a catastrophic war with Iran to finally solving the Israel/Palestine conflict, an essential starting point is breaking AIPAC’s grip on U.S. policy.

Volunteer reapers ("Faucheurs volontaires"), beekeepers
and anti-GMO activists put a placard in front of the
Regional Direction of Agriculture on
February 21, 2012 in Toulouse

Despite requests made under the Freedom of Information Act for correspondence out of the White House, the Obama administration is refusing to comply with calls to disclose discussions with Monsanto-linked lobbyists.

The US-based non-profit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is demanding that the White House comply with a FOIA request for information that might link the Obama administration with lobbyists tied to the Monsanto corporation. Monsanto, an agricultural biotech company that rakes in billions each year, has become the enemy of independent farmers in recent years after the corporation has sued hundreds of small-time growers and, in many cases, purchased farms that are unable to compete in a court of law. As Monsanto’s profits grow and the group comes close to monopolizing the market for American agriculture, the company has at the same time thrived due its use of controversial genetically-engineered seeds.

Three-hundred thousands organic farmers across America are currently trying to take Monsanto to court to keep the corporation from continuing its war on independent growers. As a case is composed, the PEER group suspects that the White House’s refusal to comply with the FOIA request could be because Monsanto has some powerful friends on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Particularly, PEER is trying to pry correspondence that came into the inbox of a White House policy analyst from a lobbyist with the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), which represents Monsanto and other manufacturers of genetically-engineered seeds. The White House says that disclosing the full details of the email could give competing companies an advantage as lobbying secrets are unearthed for the world, but PEER thinks the truth is much worse than that.

"We suspect the reason an industry lobbyist so cavalierly shared strategy is that the White House is part of that strategy," PEER staff counsel Kathryn Douglass tells the Truthout website. "The White House's legal posture is as credible as claiming Coca Cola's secret formula was 'inadvertently' left in a duffel bag at the bus station."

Michael Taylor, a former attorney for the US Department of Agriculture and lobbyist for Monsanto, was recently appointed to a federal role as the deputy commissioner for foods at the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Since then, the FDA shot down requests from consumer protection groups to label genetically modified products as such. With a White House-Monsanto connection already established with the appointment of Taylor, PEER and others are interested in what other ties could exist between the two.

The inquiry from PEER stems from an earlier email obtained in which biotech lobbyist Adrianne Massey confronts a White House official with regards to if and how the administration is dealing with a lawsuit PEER had filed. In that instance, PEER had fought and won to keep genetically-engineered crops from being planted in wildlife refuges. PEER is now suing the White House for the rest of that correspondence and other related emails.

Former president Bill Clinton is among nominees for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize, Reuters reports. Jan Egeland, the European director of Human Rights Watch, mentioned Clinton after the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was considering two hundred and thirty one names.

In 2009, the current war criminal in chief, Barry Obama, was chosen as peacemaker. The Committee said Obama received the award “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people.” Obama was continuing and amplifying upon Bush’s wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan at the time, making him a perfect candidate for the hypocritical “award” doled out by the ossified Norwegian Nobel Institute and its secretariat.

In 1999, Bill Clinton was one of the world’s leading war criminals. He had surpassed the crimes of his predecessor and “brought to the commission of war crimes a new eclectic reach and postmodern style,” Edward S. Herman wrote at the time. “A skilled public relations person, he has refined the rhetoric of humanistic and ethical concern and can apologize with seeming great sincerity,” a parlor trick Obama has attempted to emulate.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of dollars in White House money has helped pay for New York Police Department programs that put entire American Muslim neighborhoods under surveillance.

The money is part of a little-known grant intended to help law enforcement fight drug crimes. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush and Obama administrations have provided $135 million to the New York and New Jersey region through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, known as HIDTA.

Some of that money — it’s unclear exactly how much because the program has little oversight — has paid for the cars that plainclothes NYPD officers used to conduct surveillance on Muslim neighborhoods. It also paid for computers that store even innocuous information about Muslim college students, mosque sermons and social events.

When NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly was filled in on these efforts, his briefings were prepared on HIDTA computers.

The AP confirmed the use of White House money through secret police documents and interviews with current and former city and federal officials. The AP also obtained electronic documents with digital signatures indicating they were created and saved on HIDTA computers. The HIDTA grant program is overseen by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The disclosure that the White House is at least partially paying for the NYPD’s wholesale surveillance of places where Muslims eat, shop, work and pray complicates efforts by the Obama administration to stay out of the fray over New York’s controversial counterterrorism programs. The administration has championed outreach to American Muslims and has said law enforcement should not put entire communities under suspicion.

The Obama administration, however, has pointedly refused to endorse or repudiate the NYPD programs it helps pay for. The White House last week declined to comment on its grant payments.

"The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists." (J.EdgarHoover, 1895-1972.)

Smelt any proverbial rats, lately? If not, you have not been paying attention, there are plenty about.

Consider for instance this: "Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now" and "must step aside ...” Hilary Clinton (Asia Times, 9th February 2012.)

“I strongly condemn the Syrian government's unspeakable assault ... and I offer my deepest sympathy to those who have lost loved ones. Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now. He must step aside ...” said President Barack Hussein Obama. (i)

Yet responsibility for US victims, in their hundreds of thousands, spanning Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, in Guantanamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, are wholly unaccountable – and uncounted..

"This (Syria’s) is a doomed regime as well as a murdering regime. There is no way it can get its credibility back either internationally or with its own people”, Britain’s little Foreign Secretary, William Hague, chimed in obediently, from the Washington script, on Sky News.

“Because the regime is so intransigent, because it is conducting ten months unmitigated violence and repression – more than 6,000 killed, with 12,000 or 14,000 in detention and subject to every kind of torture and abuse – it is driving some opponents to violent action themselves”, concluded Hague.

Hypocrisy reigns supreme. Walking distance from Hague’s office: “living in style and protection”, is Bashar Al Assad’s Uncle Rifaat, under whose Defence Brigades onslaught killed up to perhaps thirty thousand people in the city of Hama, which was also partially destroyed, Falluja style. The thirtieth anniversary of a truly terrible event is commemorated today, 25th February. (See Robert Fisk, Independent, 25th February 2012.)

Of Libya, in March 2011, Obama stated: "Going forward, we will continue to send a clear message: The violence must stop. Muammar Gaddafi has lost legitimacy to lead, and he must leave. Those who perpetrate violence against the Libyan people will be held accountable. And the aspirations of the Libyan people for freedom, democracy and dignity must be met.”(ii.)

An anomaly (apart from the script similarity): In Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, deaths resultant from US-UK and “allied” actions are: “impossible to verify”, by Washington and Whitehall.

Indeed, this month, the (UK) Parliamentary Select Committee on Defence, issued a Report, after an Inquiry in to operations in Libya, stating that: “Britain has no way of knowing how many civilians died in the Libyan conflict as a result of Nato bombing.” (iii)

Back in March 2011, however, the exact figure of Quaddafi’s victims was “known.” Coincidentally, it was also exactly 6,000, stated a “political analyst” - using remarkably State Department-similar phraseology.(iv)

As under Saddam Hussein in Iraq (with no diplomatic presence) in Libya and now little in Syria - with no point of contact bar, seemingly, a satellite dish fitter, in Coventry, England, alleged to be the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” - exact death and casualty figures are always miraculously available.

A new nemesis appears on the horizon – or “Arab street”- and precise numbers are trumpeted. Yet when Western forces, “Viceroys”, “Intelligence” services, “mentors” and myriad, general meddlers, mercenaries and marauders pitch up, murder and occupy, none are available.

Of course no proposed invasion (sorry, “humanitarian intervention”) regime change and accompanying mass slayings would be complete without forces of a wicked tyrant switching off electricity to babies incubators.

For anyone who has forgotten the details, the (1990-1991) Iraq model went like this: vast US government employed PR agency, Hill and Knowlton (“we create value by shaping conversations: we start them, we amplify them, we change them. We can connect seamlessly with all of your audiences...”)produced a fifteen year old girl called “Nayirah”, a “Kuwaiti with first hand knowledge of ... her tortured land.”

“I volunteered (tears) at the Al Addan Hospital .. I saw the Iraqi soldiers ..with guns, they took fifteen babies out of incubators, left them on the cold floor and took the incubators.”

Strangely, no one asked why she didn't pick them up and wrap and tend to them, or checked who she really was.

She was the daughter of Saud al Sabar, the Kuwaiti Ambassador to US. The incubators story of course, was a complete fabrication.

Monday, February 27, 2012

(Reuters) - A suicide car bomber killed nine people in an attack on a military airport in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, officials said, the latest bloodshed since copies of the Koran were burned at a NATO base last week.

There was no official indication the explosion at the gates of Jalalabad airport was linked to the deadly protests, but the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack as "revenge" for the Koran burnings.

Nineteen Afghan civilians and law enforcement officers and four NATO soldiers were wounded in the blast, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Nangarhar province, of which Jalalabad is the capital, said.

Jalalabad airport is almost exclusively used by NATO and the U.S. military.

Anti-Western fury has deepened significantly since the desecration of the Muslim holy book at the main NATO Bagram air base in Afghanistan. NATO described the incident as a tragic blunder.

The U.S. Embassy warned of a "heightened" threat to American citizens in Afghanistan and many Westerners are on "lock down", meaning they are not allowed out of their fortified compounds.Riots have raged across Afghanistan over the past week despite widespread apologies from U.S. leaders, including President Barack Obama and military commanders.

Seven U.S. military trainers were wounded on Sunday when a grenade was thrown at their base in Afghanistan's north.

Chants of "Death to America!" have come to characterize the protests and some demonstrators have hoisted the white Taliban flag.

With few signs of the crisis abating, the U.S. ambassador said the United States should resist the urge to pull troops out of Afghanistan ahead of schedule.

"Tensions are running very high here. I think we need to let things calm down, return to a more normal atmosphere, and then get on with business," Ambassador Ryan Crocker told CNN.

"This is not the time to decide that we are done here. We have got to redouble our efforts. We've got to create a situation that al Qaeda is not coming back," he said.

Under an international agreement, foreign combat forces are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, a process which is already under way.

WIDESPREAD ANGER

The groundswell of anger over the burning of the Koran, which Muslims revere as the literal word of God, has highlighted the challenges ahead as Western forces try to quell violence and bring about some form of reconciliation with the Taliban.

The violence has killed more than 30 people and wounded at least 200, including two U.S. troops shot dead by an Afghan soldier who joined rallies in the east. Two U.S. officers were also shot at close range inside the Interior Ministry.

In an interview from Rabat, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the violence was "out of hand and it needs to stop".

The shooting of two U.S. officers deep inside the heavily fortified Interior Ministry on Saturday has intensified the sense of unease among Westerners and deepened the divide with their Afghan counterparts.

The attack illustrates the dilemma faced by NATO forces as they move away from a combat role to an advise-and-assist mission, which will require them to place more staff in ministries.

With the 2014 timetable unfolding, pressure is growing for an earlier pullout, especially among Washington's allies in Europe, where the bloody and expensive war is deeply unpopular.

The high-level killings prompted NATO, Britain, Germany and Canada to withdraw their staff from Afghan ministries.

The Taliban also took responsibility for the Interior Ministry attack, although the Islamist group often exaggerates claims involving attacks against Western forces.

On Sunday, the ministry said one of its employees was a suspect in the shooting of the two U.S. officers. Afghan security sources also identified a 25-year-old police intelligence officer as a suspect.Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly urged calm and restraint, although he also maintains that those who burned the Korans must be prosecuted.

Similar desecration of the Koran in the past have also sparked violence, although not as widespread and persistent as the riots and protests over the past week.

Last April, seven foreign U.N. staff were killed when protesters overran a base in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif after an obscure pastor from a fringe church in the United States deliberately burned a copy of the Koran.

During the past weeks, Republican candidates have been bitterly attacking each other, mostly telling the people that the other candidates are not conservative enough.

As a rule of thumb, I think that most of what they say about the other candidates is true, while everything they say about themselves is a lie.

I purposely keep Ron Paul out of this dogfight. The reason is because, as the last tactic against the only candidate who consistently, by words and deeds, has done what he swore to do, defend and protect the Constitution, Ron Paul is not a conservative.

Self-entitled conservative Republicans apparently believe that they have a monopoly on the Constitution. Now, given the fact that they still love “compassionate conservative” George W. Bush, still the main destroyer of the Constitution in recent times — though Obama is trying harder to beat his record — I wonder, what do conservatives want to conserve?

Let’s see.

Do they want to conserve the practice of torture (aka enhanced interrogation methods) in military detention camps?

Do they want to preserve the cancellation of habeas corpus?

To they want to maintain the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without the right to a trial?

Do they want to conserve the constant surveillance and harassment under the current police state?

Do they want to perpetuate the DHS’s power to violate the citizens’ rights?

Do they want to safeguard the right of U.S.-based transnational corporations to move U.S. jobs abroad, use semi-slave workers and avoid paying taxes?

Do they want oil magnates, Wall Street bankers and big corporations to keep using the U.S. armed forces to fight long, non-declared, unwinnable wars to protect their private interests abroad?

Do they want to prolong the social and economic destruction of America by the very ones we elected to oppose it?

Do they want to preserve the indoctrination in public schools on the wonders of abortion and gay lifestyle, and the distribution of free condoms, birth control pills, and other eugenicist tools of population control?

Do they want to perpetuate the teaching in our universities of pseudo-scientific, religious theories like evolution and global warming, as well as the evils of capitalism and the marvels of socialism?

Do they want to continue reducing the freedom of the American people by both Republicans (Patriot Act) and Democrats (National Defense Authorization Act)?

Do they want to perpetuate the fiction that there are significant differences between the Republican and the Democratic Party?

Do they want to safeguard the existence of a corrupt Congress totally sold to corporate interests?

Do they want to maintain the control of the U.S. in the hands of a group of CFR conspirators through their secret agents in the NSC, the Department of State and the Pentagon?

Do they want to prolong the waging of non-declared, unconstitutional wars all around the planet?

Do they want to keep the growing national debt?

Do they want to perpetuate the right of corporations to produce their gadgets abroad with slave labor?

Do they want to safeguard the right of corporate executives to get humongous bonuses and avoiding paying taxes?

Do they want to perpetuate the infringements on our personal freedoms?

Do they want to conserve the breakdown of the rule of law by the very ones who are supposed to preserve it?

Do they want to prolong the dismal state of the U.S. economy, the destruction of the middle class and the impoverishing of American workers?

Do they want to keep the growing economic differences between the very rich and the very poor?

Do they want to maintain the eugenicist practices of killing American children, either as babies, in their mothers’ wombs (the Democrat way), or as teenagers, fighting foreign wars on behalf of transnational corporations and Wall Street bankers (the Republican way)?

James Abourezk represented South Dakota in Congress from 1971 to 1979. CNI asked Senator Abourezk about his experiences with the Israel Lobby. In his first response he told of an Israeli plot to assassinate him. In this column he discusses threats to his family, Alan Dershowitz, and Israeli lobbyists embedded in the U.S. State Department:

When I was Chairman of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee (ADC), we had two bombing incidents. I had no idea who was responsible, but I had a guess.

Someone unknown placed a bomb in the doorway of ADC’s Boston headquarters. The staff there called the Boston police, who came and were in the process of disarming the pipe bomb that they found there. If I recall correctly, the police had put the bomb in a metal barrel, and it exploded in the face of one of the police officers, seriously injuring him. We all felt terrible about the policeman being injured and we tried as best we could to console his family. The whole incident was covered by a Boston TV station, and I assume they still have the footage of the explosion on file.

At around the same time, someone unknown firebombed the ADC headquarters in Washington, D.C. I was out of town at the time, but no one was hurt, and I was able to get back in time to accompany the arson expert with the D.C. police department, who showed us exactly where the bomb was thrown and how the fire had spread from that point.
Because we were all gripped with fear of what might be next, I decided to tighten up the security on my home, if nothing more than to calm down my family. I had bought a Rottweiler dog sometime earlier both for protection of my family and of our home. I learned that Rottweilers would automatically attack anyone who came near our home, unless we had introduced the dog to person visiting. I had a security expert—someone who had once worked as a Secret Service agent in the White House—make recommendations to insure that we would be a difficult target for someone who would wish us harm. We followed his advice and made the house a bit more invulnerable. He also told us that it would be impossible to make any home 100 per cent safe, but we could make it so a potential bomber would be discouraged enough to give up trying.

I also hired a 24 hour guard for the house. The first night the guard, a young man wearing a blue blazer and armed with a weapon situated himself inside, near the front door. At one point during the night, he ran upstairs to our bedrooms and shouted that there was something making noises outside. I suggested that, since he had the gun, that he should check it out, but he wanted me to go with him. So I dressed, took the Rottweiler with me on a leash and the guard and I did a search around the house. Finding nothing we went back in. The guard spent the rest of the night immediately outside my bedroom door, I suspect more frightened that I was, and the next day, I fired the security service.

After the bombing of the ADC headquarters in Washington, I was still extremely nervous about what might happen, but I put on my brave face and held a press conference, announcing to the world that “we would not be intimidated” by these kind of terrorists, and that we were going to work harder than ever to bring justice to the Palestinians and others in the Middle East who were victims of Israel’s aggression. But I honestly had a hard time staying calm and preventing myself from running out of the room to find a safe place to hide.

What Has Been Your Experience with Alan Dershowitz?

I remember Alan Dershowitz, not as a Harvard Law Professor, but as the person who wrote an op-ed column in one of our national newspapers in which he said that Palestinians need not worry about justice in the Occupied Territories, as the Israeli Supreme Court would always make certain that they were fairly treated. I’ve been reading Mondoweiss online, which has a daily list of Palestinians whose homes are leveled by U.S.-made bulldozers, of land outright stolen by Israeli settlers for the use of the settlers, most of whom come from the United States to live in the West Bank. I know that Dershowitz’s words about the Israeli Supreme Court are a great comfort to those Palestinians in the West Bank who have been killed, maimed, and their property stolen.

A few short years ago when I was in Damascus, I did an interview on Al Manar Television, which is Hizbollah’s channel in Lebanon. During the interview I mentioned that Alan Dershowitz was a “snake.”

There is a pro-Israeli group here in the U.S. which calls itself “MEMRI” which tapes television shows broadcast in the Middle East. They had taped my interview, which I suppose is where Alan Dershowitz heard about my description of him. He thereupon wrote a column in the Jerusalem Post in which he called me an “anti-Semite.” That slur is the favorite of Pro-Israeli Lobbyists and it works a lot of the time, often succeeding in silencing critics of Israel or of its policies.

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning the warrantless use of GPS tracking devices has caused a “sea change” inside the U.S. Justice Department, according to FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann.

Mr. Weissmann, speaking at a University of San Francisco conference called “Big Brother in the 21st Century” on Friday, said that the court ruling prompted the FBI to turn off about 3,000 GPS tracking devices that were in use.

These devices were often stuck underneath cars to track the movements of the car owners. In U.S. v. Jones, the Supreme Court ruled that using a device to track a car owner without a search warrant violated the law.

After the ruling, the FBI had a problem collecting the devices that it had turned off, Mr. Weissmann said. In some cases, he said, the FBI sought court orders to obtain permission to turn the devices on briefly – only in order to locate and retrieve them.

Mr. Weissmann said that the FBI is now working to develop new guidelines for the use of GPS devices. He said the agency is also working on guidelines to cover the broader implications of the court decision beyond GPS devices.

For instance, he said, agency is now “wrestling” with the legality of whether agents can lift up the lid of a trash can without committing trespass. The majority opinion in U.S. v. Jones held that the agents had trespassed when placing the GPS device on a car without warrant.

He said the agency is also considering the implications of the concurring justices – whose arguments were largely based on the idea that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the totality of their movements, even if those movements are in public.

“From a law enforcement perspective, even though its not technically holding, we have to anticipate how it’s going to go down the road,” Mr. Weissmann said.

CHEYENNE — State representatives on Friday advanced legislation to launch a study into what Wyoming should do in the event of a complete economic or political collapse in the United States.

House Bill 85 passed on first reading by a voice vote. It would create a state-run government continuity task force, which would study and prepare Wyoming for potential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to a complete meltdown of the federal government.

The task force would look at the feasibility ofWyoming issuing its own alternative currency, if needed. And House members approved an amendment Friday by state Rep. Kermit Brown, R-Laramie, to have the task force also examine conditions under which Wyoming would need to implement its own military draft, raise a standing army, and acquire strike aircraft and an aircraft carrier.

The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. David Miller, R-Riverton, has said he doesn’t anticipate any major crises hitting America anytime soon. But with the national debt exceeding $15 trillion and protest movements growing around the country, Miller said Wyoming — which has a comparatively good economy and sound state finances — needs to make sure it’s protected should any unexpected emergency hit the U.S.

Several House members spoke in favor of the legislation, saying there was no harm in preparing for the worst.

“I don’t think there’s anyone in this room today what would come up here and say that this country is in good shape, that the world is stable and in good shape — because that is clearly not the case,” state Rep. Lorraine Quarberg, R-Thermopolis, said. “To put your head in the sand and think that nothing bad’s going to happen, and that we have no obligation to the citizens of the state of Wyoming to at least have the discussion, is not healthy.”

Wyoming’s Department of Homeland Security already has a statewide crisis management plan, but it doesn’t cover what the state should do in the event of an extreme nationwide political or economic collapse. In recent years, lawmakers in at least six states have introduced legislation to create a state currency, all unsuccessfully.

The task force would include state lawmakers, the director of the Wyoming Department of Homeland Security, the Wyoming attorney general and the Wyoming National Guard’s adjutant general, among others.

The bill must pass two more House votes before it would head to the Senate for consideration. The original bill appropriated $32,000 for the task force, though the Joint Appropriations Committee slashed that number in half earlier this week.

University of Wyoming political science professor Jim King said the potential for a complete unraveling of the U.S. government and economy is “astronomically remote” in the foreseeable future.
But King noted that the federal government set up a Continuity of Government Commission in 2002, of which former U.S. Sen. Al Simpson, R-Wyo., was co-chairman. However, King said he didn’t know of any states that had established a similar board.

Richard Siegmund Lindzen, 72, an atmospheric physicist at MIT, contributed to the IPCC reports of 1995 and 2001 and this week went to Parliament in Britain to address a seminar arranged by the Campaign To Repeal the Climate Change Act. James Delingpole of the Telegraph was delighted and praised the professor’s speech, which can be read in whole here.

From James Delingpole: “Dick Lindzen does not need to raise his voice. He does not use hyperbole. In a tone somewhere between weariness and withering disdain, he lets the facts speak for themselves. And the facts, as he understands them, are devastating.”

Delingpole highlighted this from the speech:

Stated briefly, I will simply try to clarify what the debate over climate change is really about. It most certainly is not about whether climate is changing: it always is. It is not about whether CO2 is increasing: it clearly is. It is not about whether the increase in CO2, by itself, will lead to some warming: it should. The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes. The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak – and commonly acknowledged as such. They are sometimes overtly dishonest.

I thought his conclusion of his speech (which was punctuated with charts and scientific formulations that I do not understand):

Our recent work on the early faint sun may prove particularly important. 2.5 billion years ago, when the sun was 20% less bright (compared to the 2% change in the radiative budget associated with doubling CO2), evidence suggests that the oceans were unfrozen and the temperature was not very different from today’s. No greenhouse gas solution has worked, but a negative cloud feedback does. You now have some idea of why I think that there won’t be much warming due to CO2, and without significant global warming, it is impossible to tie catastrophes to such warming. Even with significant warming it would have been extremely difficult to make this connection.

Perhaps we should stop accepting the term, ‘skeptic.’ Skepticism implies doubts about a plausible proposition. Current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition. Twenty years of repetition and escalation of claims does not make it more plausible. Quite the contrary, the failure to improve the case over 20 years makes the case even less plausible as does the evidence from climategate and other instances of overt cheating. In the meantime, while I avoid making forecasts for tenths of a degree change in globally averaged temperature anomaly, I am quite willing to state that unprecedented climate catastrophes are not on the horizon though in several thousand years we may return to an ice age.

Now then, here is one man who has studied global warming alongside all these super duper experts and he has come up to the same conclusion that 1973 Nobel Physics laureate Ivar Giaever: The science is not there to support this theory.

So why are we allowing our politicians to bully us into wholesale changes in our economy? Barack Obama is using this silliness as a cover to give $35 billion in loan guarantees to “green” companies such as Solyndra, which not only went belly up but left behind a bunch of barrels of unknown goo.

This nation has never had as many college graduates — or as many intellectual sheep.

First, there was no serious criminal prosecution, meaning that no one will be charged with a felony and no one will go to jail. In terms of affecting executives’ incentives, this is the only thing that matters.

Even the terminology used to frame the discussion is wrong. Kelleher, an attorney with extensive experience in private practice and the public sector, tells it like it is: “ ‘Robo-signing’ is massive, systematic, fraudulent, criminal conduct.” Alternatively, as he points out, we could just call it “lying, cheating, and stealing.”

Second, the civil penalties in this settlement—a form of fine—are minuscule relative to the size of the companies involved. As Shahien Nasiripour, one of the best reporters on this issue, dryly put it: “None of the five lenders have said they expect to incur a material charge due to the settlement.” In other words, from a corporate perspective, the penalty is a trifling affair.

Third, such fines are, in any case, paid by the companies’ shareholders, not by their executives or board members (all of whom carry insurance). In the rare cases in which fines have been levied on individuals, either their insurance policies picked up most of the bill, or the penalties were trivial relative to the cash compensation that they received while committing their crimes—or both.

The Obama administration and its allies have worked hard to sell its settlement with the banks as one that will have a meaningful impact on the housing market. But nothing could be further from the truth. As Kelleher points out, the United States has “more than 10 million homes under water” (the outstanding mortgage exceeds the house’s value). “Twenty billion dollars doesn’t make a dent in that: one million homes at $20,000 loan forgiveness is it.”

In fact, the Obama administration’s settlement with the mortgage lenders is consistent with its track record on all of its policies related to the financial sector, which has been abysmal. But it is also puzzling. Why would the administration continue to bend over backward to be lenient toward top bankers under these circumstances?

I honestly do not believe that the administration’s stance reflects any form of corruption—payments made to individuals or even to political campaigns. And, in this case, it does not even appear to reflect the lobbying power of big financial players. That power certainly explains why the Dodd-Frank financial reforms enacted in 2010 were not stronger, and why there is now so much opposition to effective implementation of that legislation (for example, there is currently a huge fight around the “Volcker rule,” which would limit proprietary trading by megabanks). But mortgage lenders’ criminal activities are another matter.

Ex-Interior Minister Habib el-Adly is currently being tried
for killing demonstrators in Egypt. He is also implicated
in the Coptic Church Bombing in Alexandria on New Years Eve, 2010.

Ismail Haniya denies claims by Egypt's former interior minister Habib El-Adly that Hamas members killed protesters during January 25 Revolution

The leader of Hamas in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, has denied allegations by Egypt's former interior minister Habib El-Adly that Hamas members entered Egypt during the January 25 Revolution to sow chaos in the country and killed protesters.

El-Adly made the claims – without providing evidence – on the final day of his trial for allegedly ordering the killing of protesters during Egypt's revolution.

Hosni Mubarak, his two sons Gamal and Alaa, and six of El-Adly's aides are also on trial. The judge is due to deliver his verdict on 2 June.

Haniya spoke to journalists on Thursday after meeting Saad El-Katatni, speaker of the People’s Assembly.

“Hamas has never interfered in Egyptian issues, before or after the revolution,” said Haniya. "During the revolution the Egyptian people presented a model that should be followed throughout the world."
Haniya congratulated Egypt on the success of the revolution and its new democratic system. He described his visit to Egypt's parliament as "historic."

The People’s Assembly is the "assembly of the Egyptian revolution," he added.
Haniya is visiting Egypt with a Hamas delegation to participate in talks with Fatah as part of the Palestinian reconciliation agreement supported by Egypt.

Here we go again. Global warming is suddenly back in the news and I think I know why. But before I discuss that, let's take a look at the latest grim findings.

Once more we're reading about the terrible toll that global warming can take. In this case, we're being led to understand that it may have resulted in the demise of a great, ancient civilization and also the reduction in size of various noble mammals.

Civilization first. According to hundreds of articles now clogging the Internet, scientists in Britain believe that a lack of rainfall may have doomed the great Mayan civilization.

This "speculation" is based on the idea that rainfall in areas of Mayan habitat declined for as long as a decade at a time. The scientists published their findings in the Feb. 24 issue of the journal Science.

FoxNews/LiveScience quotes the lead researcher himself. "'Our results show rather modest rainfall reductions between times when the Classic Maya civilization flourished and its collapse between 800 to 950,' said Eelco Rohling, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Southampton in England.

"These reductions amount to only 25 to 40 percent in annual rainfall, but they were large enough for evaporation to become dominant over rainfall, and open water availability was rapidly reduced. The data suggest that the main cause was a decrease in summer storm activity."

According to Rholing, even modest reductions in rainfall may have toppled the Mayans if the rainfall occurred in the summer when the Mayans planted and harvested.

What does the article conclude? "The collapse of the ancient Mayan civilization may have been linked to relatively modest dry spells, researchers now say."

According to the story, "Scientists have long drawn connections between the slow decline of the ancient Maya, which took about two centuries, 'to climate change, and especially to drought,' said researcher Martín Medina-Elizalde at the Yucatan Center for Scientific Research in Mexico."

OK, so climate change (global warming) caused the end of a wonderful civilization. But worse is to come. Climate change apparently shrinks mammals, including humans.

According to another spate of articles hitting the Internet, humans may miniaturize as a result of global warming.

Here's something from the Christian Science Monitor on the syndrome: "It's been long known that the Earth's rising surface temperatures portend mass extinction, prolonged droughts, extreme weather, and rising seas. Now we can add a new worry: Humanity could be transformed into a race of hobbits."

This “emperor has no clothes” conclusion is obvious upon inspection of what the six US mega-media corporations submit as “news” (here, here, here, among hundreds of independent writers’ works).

Historic political and economic oligarchies have three components to transfer wealth from the 99% to themselves while avoiding an “Occupy Movement” to force their surrender:

Political control for self-serving laws and enforcement,

Economic and monetary control to literally “make” what is used for money to purchase agents for control,

Media to lie in commission and omission with the purpose of keeping the 99% deceived and their slave class.

Occupy’s purpose today is to educate the 99% as to the objective and independently verifiable facts of the 1%’s crimes centering in war and money (they have not subverted all laws to their Orwellian language... yet). Education will lead to arrests of the criminals; ending their power to harm and lie. The end of criminal US oligarchy opens a future for policy to uplift 100% of Earth’s inhabitants.

Occupy wants this transition to be as smooth as possible.

Please help as you see best.

Millions of people will live or die based on our collective choice. Billions of people will be uplifted or harmed. Trillions of our dollars will find constructive or destructive investment from what we think, say, and do.

Digg was caught censoring stories which were controversial or too critical of the government. See this and this.

Now, even social media site Reddit – which helped launch the anti-Sopa Internet blackout and publicize GoDaddy’s slimy Sopa support – is doing the same thing.

As just one example, posts from this website are being censored by Reddit. Specifically, a friend of this site who has submitted stories to Reddit has received the following messages of rejection from a Reddit moderator named davidreiss666:

from davidreiss666 via /r/worldnews/

WashingtonBlog is not something we consider a good source for r/Worldnews.

from davidreiss666 via /r/worldnews/

Please submit that story from an alternate domain. Thank you.

And another moderator named Maxion:

from Maxion via /r/worldnews/

I am sorry but this submission is not appropriate for this subreddit.

There are certainly also more open-minded moderators at Reddit. But a couple of censors can squash discussion on entire topics.

Why are they censoring?

Well, censorship is rampant in America ... and social media has grown so big that it has become a target as well.

In addition, as I pointed out last year [for ease of reading, we'll skip indentation]:

Wired reported on Friday:

The Pentagon is looking to build a tool to sniff out social media propaganda campaigns and spit some counter-spin right back at it.

On Thursday, Defense Department extreme technology arm Darpa unveiled its Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program. It’s an attempt to get better at both detecting and conducting propaganda campaigns on social media. SMISC has two goals. First, the program needs to help the military better understand what’s going on in social media in real time — particularly in areas where troops are deployed. Second, Darpa wants SMISC to help the military play the social media propaganda game itself.

This is more than just checking the trending topics on Twitter. The Defense Department wants to deeply grok social media dynamics. So SMISC algorithms will be aimed at discovering and tracking the “formation, development and spread of ideas and concepts (memes)” on social media, according to Darpa’s announcement.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

US intelligence analysts believe there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb, The New York Times reported Saturday.

US intelligence analysts believe there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb, The New York Times reported Saturday.

The report comes a day after the United Nations' nuclear watchdog said that Iran had accelerated its nuclear program, with the country having increased its production of higher-grade enriched uranium over the past few months.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's director-general Yukiya Amano wrote in the report issued Friday that Iran had also refused to answer key questions about its nuclear development program.

"As Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation … the agency is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities," Amano stated, the LA Times reported.

Citing unnamed officials, the Times said the latest assessments by US spy agencies were broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program.
The report, while not explicitly stating that the Islamic Republic is pushing ahead with atomic bomb plans, will likely further inflame Israeli fears that is the case, Reuters reported.
"The Agency continues to have serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program," the IAEA wrote in its a quarterly report about Iran issued to member states.

In response to the report, the White House said it was clear Iran was violating UN Security Council resolutions with its nuclear enrichment program.

"When combined with its continued stonewalling of international inspectors, Iran's actions demonstrate why Iran has failed to convince the international community that its nuclear program is peaceful," White House National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement.

The Times, meantime, wrote that there was no dispute among US, Israeli and European intelligence officials that Iran had been enriching nuclear fuel and developing some necessary infrastructure to become a nuclear power.

However, the CIA and other intelligence agencies believed that Iran had yet to decide whether to design a nuclear warhead.

They believe that program was halted in 2003, the paper noted, adding that their assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of America's 16 intelligence agencies.

Yesterday, the Oregon House Revenue Committee approved a bill that will be heard very soon by the full House, that calls for divestment from any company connected to Iran's oil industry. Ostensibly, this is to fall in line with already-imposed (draconian, mostly unilateral) sanctions imposed by the US against Iran. As with Iraq in 1990 (-2003), sanctions will hurt the people more than the government. This is actually part of the drum-beat to war that must be reversed.

The vote could take place as soon as Friday, so contact your legislator as soon as you can; if you don't know who they are, here's a place to get information:
http://www.legislatorpro.com

Leah Bolger of Veterans for Peace in Corvallis-- who, I should add, is also now the President of the National Veterans for Peace-- wrote an excellent letter to her legislator which I include as a generic letter below for you to use to contact yours.

This is pretty depressing after a nice turnout of about 300 people at Sunday's "No War on Iran!" demonstration.
--dan handelman
peace and justice works iraq affinity group

Dear Representative ______:

I am writing today in opposition to House Bill 4110.

The main opposition against the bill comes from an argument that has been made in support of it "...the impact of this bill would be to make sure that Oregon funds are not used to build a nuclear weapons program..." This statement implies that Iran is building nuclear weapons. There is no evidence to that, and in fact the opposite is true.

In a memorandum written on behalf of Veterans for Peace, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern wrote: "Defense Ministers Provide Context--Recent accusations that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon lack credibility. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and his counterpart, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak have both said (on Jan. 8 and Jan. 18 respectively) publicly that Iran is not.

"On Face the Nation, Panetta asked: 'Are they [the Iranians] trying to develop a nuclear weapon?' and immediately answered his own question: 'No.' Ehud Barak followed suit ten days later. He added that only if Iran expelled the U.N. inspectors would there be 'definite proof that time is running out' and that 'harsher sanctions or other action against Iran' might be in order."

But what we DO know for certain is that Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons, is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and has never let International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors into their country. Pakistan and India have not signed the NPT either, and they both have fully developed weapons. For the U.S. to impose sanctions of any kind on Iran is provocative, hypocritical, and inhumane.
Those sanctions the U.S. has already put in place are already having a crippling effect. There is superinflation and it is hurting the average Iranian.

Though I do not even support the development of nuclear power (there is too much danger of a catastrophe like Chernobyl or Fukushima), I acknowledge that every country has the right to develop nuclear energy. There is no evidence to show that Iran is doing anything more than that. But even if they were developing a nuclear weapon, how can we say that they have no right to, when Israel has them, we have them, India and Pakistan have them...? If our state government wants to pull Oregon money away from all countries who are developing nuclear energy and/or have nuclear weapons, then I am all for that. But this bill adds fuel to the fire that Iran is our enemy, and is not a positive step.

I am also bothered by the final portion of the bill: "SECTION 9. This 2012 Act being necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health and safety, an emergency is declared to exist, and this 2012 Act takes effect on its passage." This is just more alarmist language to make people think that the U.S. is in imminent danger at the hands of Iran, when actually the opposite is true.

I would like to see the Oregon legislature pass a bill that says that they do not support any military attack on the nation of Iran. That would do a lot more to calm the rush to war that we are hearing from everywhere. Though its crafters believe this is a very narrowly written bill, its implications are very harmful. I hope you will not support this bill.

Fatally Flawed: The Pursuit of Justice in a Suspicious Election

Voices of Opposition

Basic Statistics for U.S. Imperialism

New Additions

The World Reacts...

Click Picture

See Hillary Clinton Make Fun of Gaddafi's Murder

Here is Israel's Crap Treatment of an American Jew

People participate in movements when that particular movement

(1) meets their concrete and tangible needs,(2) offers individuals real experiences in the movement's outcome(3) provides a sense of community,(4) makes available ongoing education and skills training and(5) shows direct and effective ways for people to take further action.

A loose interpretation of a message sent on Sunday, October 4th, 2009 by the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy

Subscribe To

Free Trade's Race to the Bottom

A worker walks out of a factory building outfitted with nets, installed to prevent workers from jumping to their deaths, at a Foxconn factory, in Langfang, Hebei Province August 3, 2010. There have been nearly a dozen suicides at Foxconn plants around China this year alone, prompting calls for investigations into poor working conditions at the plants that make parts for customers such as Apple, HP and Dell. (REUTERS/Jason Lee) #

Portland 9/11 Truth Meetup Group and the Smell of Bacon

You can't have peacefor the sake of peace.Peace is a consequenceof an equitable arrangement.